CORONA – Top-seeded Hesperia Sultana rallied to beat host Corona Santiago, 34-32, in the finals of the CIF-SS Eastern Division Dual Championships on Ryan Spangler’s pin of Dylon Salcedo at 106 pounds in the penultimate match of the night.

Spangler’s win put the Sultans’ victory on ice with an eight-point lead, allowing them to harmlessly forfeit the final match at 113.

It was the outcome of the heavyweight match directly preceding the 106s, however, that ultimately swung the dual meet in Sultana’s favor and provided the biggest point of controversy in an already heated match.

“That cost us the tournament,” Santiago coach Rock San Angelo said.

Locked up on their feet late in the first period, Sultana’s Austin Gillham and Santiago’s Christian Settecase drifted several feet completely outside of the circle before the referee’s late whistle came.

Gillham had picked Settecase up off his feet and he violently returned him to the mat just after the whistle had blown. Settecase remained on the ground for several minutes receiving attention from medical trainers and eventually had to retire.

It came down to a judgment call by the referees as to whether to penalize Gillham for an illegal slam and award six points to Santiago or simply consider it an injury retirement and give the Sultans six.

They opted for the latter, which instead of extending Santiago’s lead to 10 points with two matches left, gave the Sultans their first lead of the night, 28-26.

If an illegal slam had been called, Spangler’s pin would have then drawn Sultana within four with one match left, where it would have been interesting to see the outcome considering Sultana had a second-string wrestler in its 113 spot after its starter failed to make weight.

“He was 6 feet out of bounds and he got slammed after the whistle,’ San Angelo said. “(The referee) was very apologetic for costing us the tournament.”

Sultana coach Rocky Humphrey said he was somewhat worried the call might go against his team, but ultimately defended the ruling.

“He lifted him, mat returned him and they deemed that was not an illegal slam. If it’s not an illegal hold and he can’t continue then that’s what it is,” Humphrey said. “At the highest levels you’ll never see that called, at the state meet, you’ll never see it called in college. It was just a good physical mat return.”

Santiago built an early lead on wins by Kyle Cuttress (120) and Bryson Kubota (126) and stole a 7-6 decision at 138 for Dante Amodeo to go up, 14-3, when his opponent, Stevie Cardenas, was penalized twice for illegally locking his hands in the final seconds of the third period.

The lead grew to 20-6, when Josh Kim (152) pinned Nate Vargas and then Dylan Wallace (160), wrestling with one eye completely bandaged because of a semifinal injury, held off a furious comeback by Evan Solis to push the lead to 23-6.

But just as the Sultans chipped away at an even bigger deficit in the semifinals, coming back from a 30-0 hole with 49 unanswered points, their upper weights steadied the ship in the finals.

Sultana’s Joey Griego earned a major decision over Luis Gomez at 170, followed by Dylan Turkowski picking up an injury forfeit over Isaiah Carreon at 182 after the latter lost consciousness briefly.

Leo Molina (195) lost to Brayden Ray, but kept the damage minimal in fighting through a 10-6 loss to make the score 26-16.

Sam Aguilar pinned Ryan Hubbs in just 63 seconds at 220 to set up the Sultans to take and secure the lead over the next two matches.

“Thank goodness we have a senior-laden crew in the upper weights who are really experienced,” Humphrey said. “They’re some of the top wrestlers in the state and we were able to overcome that.”

Third-seeded Santiago expended quite a bit of energy in the semifinals in getting past No. 2 Temecula Valley, 32-24, after being down, 15-2, after the first four matches.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.